pried Sam’s hands loose. He gave Sam a push backward, then sent Gabi toward the surface with a mighty heave. As she floated upward, she watched as if behind a kaleidoscope lens as Luke circled around behind Sam, clamped his arm around her middle, and shot toward the surface with the girl, who’d gone suddenly, frighteningly limp.
Gabi broke through the surface of the water and gulped air, flailing as she tried to convince strength to return to her limbs. One second later, Luke’s head broke through, then Sam’s.
“You okay?” he huffed. She nodded, not trusting her voice. “Can you make it up onto the dock?”
“Yes.” She had no idea where the strength came from, but she grabbed hold of the dock pilings and hauled herself up to the planks, then reached down to help Luke lift Sam up. Madison, Waverly, and Eve stood on the dock, stock-still, their eyes wide with fear.
“Go call nine-one-one! Now!” Gabi yelled, and after a momentary freeze, the three of them sprinted back up the dock toward the admin cottage.
As soon as they had Sam on the dock, Luke pulled himself out of the water and kneeled next to her, tipping her on her side and clapping her back as Oliver jumped onto the dock from shore.
“C’mon, Sam. Spit it out. The fish need the water, not you.”
No response.
“Sam, honey.” Gabi leaned close to her ear. “Come on. You’re gonna be okay. Everything’s okay now. Come on. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She heard the babble-panic in her own voice, and she knew Oliver and Luke heard it, too. Dammit. How had she never known Sam couldn’t swim?
Luke continued to thump Sam’s back while Oliver held the phone to his ear, but she still wasn’t responding.
“She wasn’t down for that long.” Gabi looked at Luke. “How could she—”
“Probably panicked and inhaled when she hit the water. Got a lungful of lake.” His voice was calm, but he looked at his watch, then at the parking lot, then back at Sam’s face. The alarms went to full-on panic in her stomach as she realized he might be timing Sam’s chances here.
She leaned closer to her ear. “Listen, Alexandra Marie. If you don’t spit out that water—”
Just then Sam’s entire body heaved, and she spit out an absolute gush of water. Then she coughed and gagged and emptied the rest of her stomach over the side of the dock.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Gabi pulled Sam’s head onto her lap. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” She stroked the girl’s hair as Sam took some sobbing, hitched breaths. “You’re all right now. It’s okay, Sam.”
“Ambulance is coming.” Oliver nodded toward the woods, and Gabi could hear a siren, but it sounded a long way off still.
Luke took Sam’s feet and rubbed them hard, probably doing some sort of emergency treatment Gabi had no knowledge of.
“You still have all your toes. Phew.” He leaned over so he could see her face. “Camp legend has it that if you go below the ten-foot mark, the lake monster eats your toes.”
No response from Sam as she lay there, which was far more worrisome to Gabi than if she’d hauled off and sworn at Luke for treating her like a five-year-old. Even more worrisome than that was the fact that she was lying still, allowing herself to be comforted. The Sam she knew never let anybody touch her.
Gabi looked at Luke, who took Sam’s wrist and checked her pulse as his eyes traded silent messages with Oliver’s. “Let’s get a heat blanket on her, just in case.”
Oliver turned and quick-stepped toward the office while Luke wrapped his hands around Sam’s feet. Gabi swallowed hard as she watched him.
“Is she hypothermic?”
He shook his head. “Shouldn’t be. She wasn’t in there long enough. But she’s shivering like crazy. Probably a combination of cold and adrenaline dump, but better to be safe than sorry.”
Gabi stroked Sam’s spiky blond hair back from her forehead, trying to corral her own adrenaline. What would she have done if Luke hadn’t been there? Would she have had the strength to pull Sam out of the water? Would she have even gotten to her in time? Would she have even known the signs of early hypothermia so she could have helped treat it before the ambulance arrived?
She hated that the answer might have been no—to all of those questions.
And as she watched Luke calmly take over, tucking the blanket around Sam, then gently wiping her face with the towel Oliver brought,